Maduro Spent over USD $5 Million to Lobby Its Own “Nemesis,” the US Government

More than five million dollars has been invested by the government of Nicolas Maduro in political lobbying in the United States, a country that has been accused on several occasions of trying to overthrow him.

Despite the fact that since Maduro took over, he spent much of his time antagonizing Barack Obama, the reality is that at the same time he had millions of dollars at his disposal to improve relations between the two countries.

A report from Diario las Américas revealed that Maduro‘s government has spent USD $5,340,000 in political lobbying in the US. Which represents 20.48% of Venezuela’s lobbying budget since the chavistas took power.

“The government of Nicolás Maduro has quintupled Venezuelan state spending on lobbying US agencies since Maduro took over the chavista movement in 2013,” the paper said.

The information was detailed by Opensecrets.org, a part of the Center for Political Responsibility that analyzes the funds used by the state as part of lobbying activities.

According to the investigations, Venezuela used most of the money to try to measure the impact on PDVSA, and its subsidiary Citgo, of the sanctions imposed by the government of Barack Obama against Venezuelan officials.

According to Opensecrets, between 1999 and 2014, PDVSA spent USD $4,433,933 in lobbying in Congress, while Citgo Petroleum lobbied for funds amounting to USD $5,483,993, giving a total of US $ 9,917,986 for that purpose.

Between 2016 and 2017, PDVSA and Citgo have lobbied at least 14 agencies of the US Government. This includes 13 instances of lobbying the Senate and House of Representatives, 5 at the US State Department, 4 at the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, The Army Corps of Engineers, The US Army, The Executive Office of the President, The Office of the Vice President, the White House, The Budget Office, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and one instance at the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and the Maritime Administration.

These figures show that while PDVSA and Citigo spent almost ten million dollars in fifteen years for the lobbying process, Nicolás Maduro’s regime has spent more than half of that figure in almost four years.